As the new semester begins, the study group gathers to tackle Anthropology 101; Jeff struggles to establish decorum with Britta and Annie; Señor Chang decides to enroll as a student so he can join the study group.

Matt Roush

McHale gets to flirt and insult to his heart's content, and he's impishly believable in both modes. The supporting cast members manage to make each of their sad little lives amusing, so what could have been a downer of a show is often absurdly funny.

Alan Sepinwall

Ellen Gray

For a good three days afterward, I was tempted to introduce one of the pilot's best lines into casual conversation--no, I won't spoil it for you, but it involves sharks--yet I wondered if it might not just be a fluke. But I saw the second episode of Community yesterday, and the same thing happened.

Daynah Burnett

Given the heft of the show’s themes and the crispness of the writing, it’s got to be a brilliant social commentary disguised as a major network sitcom, right? Or maybe Joel McHale really is that likable and we’re all wallowing in nostalgia for a simpler 2002. Either way, boo-yah.

Heather Havrilesky

The first episode of Community features alarmingly smart writing, and the cast is fantastic, from Chase, who can make us laugh with just a look, to McHale, who's believably slippery but not too adorably caddish or cloying (Zach Braff, anyone?) as the antihero.

Matthew Gilbert

The show is overstuffed with political and pop culture jokes about everything from 9/11 to “The Breakfast Club,’’ but they’re always secondary to the warm ensemble character comedy. The free-floating irony isn’t terminal.

Robert Bianco

Kris King

While the cast delivers solid, funny performances, they're mostly just playing caricatures of themselves, and the rest of the supporting players range from forgettable to obnoxious, especially Danny Pudi, whose rambling Abed is about as endearing as stepping on a nail.

Nancy DeWolf Smith

Robert Lloyd

It is technically proficient--that is, the jokes consistently work, even when they don't add up to much--and its problems may not be unsolvable, if anyone even considers them problems in the first place.

David Hinckley

In weeks ahead, the show will likely work out a balance between the jerk and the laughs. Then it can also start exploring the other characters, all of whom have the potential to fuel amusing ongoing subplots.

Brian Lowry

Community embraces the traditional sitcom notion of “family” being what you make of it, but it’s a little too self-conscious about the genre’s cliches--or at least, feels that way because its satirical elements aren’t as crisp as they need to be.

Hank

The dialogue, while quick, has all the calculated bite of a smirky cellphone commercial, veering into jokes about Ben Affleck and "The Breakfast Club." The grading scale here is strictly Pass/Fail. Its preseason hype aside, Community needs to buckle down to survive the semester.

Linda Stasi

Glenn Garvin

Community's party animals tend to get their kicks less from bongs, grain-alcohol projectile vomiting and peeping into sorority windows than from irregular Spanish verbs and lengthy recitations of the script of The Breakfast Club, which, for the most part, is even less amusing than it sounds.